No release for murderess
By Andy Furillo and Sam Stanton -
afurillo@sacbee.com
Published 10:28 am PDT Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The state Board of Parole Hearings today denied compassionate release for convicted killer and Charles Manson follower Susan Atkins, who is dying of brain cancer.
Eighteen of the 23 people who spoke at the board's hearing room near the Capitol in Sacramento implored the panel to allow Atkins, who has been told she has six months to live, to go home to die.
"Susan has served a life sentence," said Virginia Seals, Atkins' sister-in-law. "This is about her death."
Similar comments came from other family members and friends, who were each given five minutes to speak to the panel. But others, including relatives of victims she killed in the 1960s, insisted that Atkins should serve out her life prison sentence.
"You'll hear various perspectives today, but you'll hear nothing from the nine people in their graves who died horrendous deaths at the hands of Susan Atkins," said Anthony Di Maria, nephew of slaying victim Jay Sebring.
Patrick Sequeira, assistant head deputy of the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, called her "one of the most notorious mass murderers in U.S. history."
Sequeira described how Atkins helped hold a pillow over musician Gary Hinman's head while somebody stabbed him to death, and how later when the Manson "family" invaded the home of actress Sharon Tate it was Atkins who stabbed Tate 16 times, then "tasted her blood" and wrote the word PIG on the front door in Tate's blood.
Atkins also told the actress, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant, that she had no mercy for her as she was killing her, Sequiera said, adding that "there's no reason to believe she can't get appropriate compassionate medical care in prison."
Atkins, who has been denied parole 12 times in the 37 years she has been in prison, was granted the hearing because the diagnosis that she has only six months to live falls within a state law that allows her to be considered for "compassionate release."
The 60-year-old Atkins has been held at the California Institution for Women at Corona, and the warden there, Dawn Davison, determined that Atkins' case met the criteria for her to be considered for release.
After that, corrections Director Matthew Cate appointed Suzan Hubbard, director of the division of adult institutions, to assess the case and she recommended against release.
"Ms. Hubbard's recommendation is that the case not be referred to the sentencing court (in Los Angeles) for consideration of sentence recall," Thornton said.
Thornton said that Atkins was "diagnosed with terminal illness with less than six months to live" and that an assessment of Atkins' case found "it's not likely she'd be a danger to society due to her failing health."
"And it's also determined she has strong family support, a viable release plan and financial support from her family," Thornton said.
Atkins family members sought to demonstrate that today as they recounted a difficult upbringing she endured and told the board that she is near death.
"Susan didn't ask for this release; I asked for this release," said Jim Whitehouse, Atkins' husband.
Her brother, Steve, added, "There's no way you can consider Susan a threat to society."
He described her childhood as horrendous, with a drunken father who turned her out into the street at age 14 after her mother died.
"He left Susan to the streets," Steve Atkins said. "He left her vulnerable to sharks like Charlie Manson."
Hinman was killed in 1969 at an isolated desert ranch the Manson followers used, but the group gained infamy and horrified the nation later in August 1969 with the slayings of Tate and four others at a home in Benedict Canyon.
Atkins and others invaded the home, killed Tate by repeatedly stabbing her and hanging her, and also killed Abigail Folger, the 26-year-old heiress to the Folger coffee fortune; Wojceich Frykowski, 37; Jay Sebring, 37; and Steven Parent, 18.
The next night, they went to a home several miles away and killed Leno La Bianca, a 44-year-old grocery store executive, and his 38-year-old wife, Rosemary. It was at that crime scene that they wrote "Helter Skelter" in the blood of the La Biancas.
Atkins was one of the Manson followers sentenced to death for their crimes and for a time she and Patricia Krenwinkle and Leslie Van Houten, two other Manson family members, were the only three women on California's death row.
But after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty in 1972, they were given life sentences. The death penalty was reinstated in 1978.
Since then, as Atkins has come before parole hearings time and again, her version of events has changed.
During her 1971 trial, Atkins confessed to stabbing Tate and maintained that Manson was innocent.
By 1993, as she was seeking parole, she told a panel that she had never killed anyone.
"I want it once and for all understood that what I have been accused of doing and what I actually did are two different things," she said at the time.
Watch
www.sacbee.com for updates.
) . 
